Snorkelling with Basking Sharks and My First Catch!
Being intrepid explorers at heart we launched the RIB from Rock and set off to try and find what looked like a reef on the charts. Time and again we chugged over the place where it should be. According to the charts it covered quite a large area coming up to a pinnacle at 11m at one point. We zigzagged back and forth for some time trying to find it until eventually we gave up as slack would soon be finished and the currents would build up again. Instead we dropped into about 8m of water next to Gulland. Totally unknown as a diving area this was really to see if there was anything there worth diving.
Huge clumps of kelp lay everywhere gently wafting back and forth with the surge. Gradually working my way down to 16m I decided to pootle on round the rocks and investigate some of the gullys as these seemed to be the most fruitful in terms of marine life. Some of the walls had a good sprinkling of jewel anemones, cup corals and various sponges etc.
There were not a huge amount of fish but every now and then they seemed to suddenly appear out of the kelp took one look at you and darted away. On investigating one particular gully I was delighted to find a lovely leopard spotted goby. These are very attractive and quite distinctive with their markings. I was most fortunate as he had reappeared while I was taking photos of the cup corals and posed very kindly for me while I took a couple of shots.
While the dive was not one of the best it was still good and if you like kelp very scenic. You really had to look for marine life…..but with my eyesight underwater I always have to anyway!
However the best part of this particular outing was yet to come.
Leaving Gulland we started back and came across some more basking sharks. Quickly grabbing snorkel, mask and fins we dropped into the water. These huge fish were amazing and although I had seen some from a boat some weeks ago to be able to watch them underwater is amazing. Swimming as they do with their noses in the air, like a dog scenting the breeze, you want to reach out and stroke their noses. Unfortunately the visibility was not brilliant as the evening was getting late and the light was going so made it increasingly more difficult to see them, but not before I had had a good look at several of these wonderful creatures the huge mouth held wide open before they swerved and dived underneath me. At one point I saw three stacked up one above each other. With the poor light I decided just to enjoy the moment rather than take pictures that would not come out very well.
However the evening was not yet over, another first was still to come. All around the boat the sea was looking like the spiky frosting on a cake where mackerel were shooting up to the surface. Putting my face over the side you could see shoals of mackerel under the boat darting around, charging to the surface then straight back down again….an incredibly fast fish, no wonder we never see them on dives! Watching how easy it seemed to catch these things on the multihooked line adorned with coloured feathers I had a go.
It was incredibly easy! There were thousands of mackerel shooting around in the water and you couldn’t help but hook them, within seconds the line was full. Although many were a bit on the small side and thrown back in, two we were able to keep which I then proudly took home…..even managing to gut them (under a bit of guidance) yuk….. I think it was cutting the heads off that was the worst bit. However once beheaded and betailed they seem to loose any character or personality that I may have bestowed on them and just become a bit of fish that tasted great!
So all in all a fantastic evening!
